I noticed this while I was asking a question on dba.stackexchange.com.

I thought I remembered a way to link stackexchange questions to other stackexchange questions so I went looking for that in the help menu while asking my question. To get to the text I am specifically talking about:

Click the question mark above the textarea in which you type your question.

Click 'Links'.

The help text claims that I should be able to type something like [question]: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/11481 and get useful output. Using this syntax, however, yields:

[question]: http://dba.stackexchange.com/questions/30452/

Which is not the behavior I expected. My questions, then, are a) am I Doing It Wrong or b) if this is a bug, will you please update the help text?

This is the help text in question:

In most cases, a plain URL will be recognized as such and automatically linked:
Visit http://area51.stackexchange.com/ regularly!
Use angle brackets to force linking: Have you seen <http://superuser.com>?
To create fancier links, use Markdown:
Here's [a link](http://www.example.com/)! And a reference-style link to [a panda][1].
References don't have to be [numbers][question].
[1]: http://notfound.stackexchange.com/
[question]: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/11481
You can add tooltips to links:
Click [here](http://diy.stackexchange.com "this text appears when you mouse over")!
This works with [reference links][blog] as well.
[blog]: http://blog.stackoverflow.com/ "click here for updates"

1 Answer
1

To create fancier links, use Markdown:
Here's [a link](http://www.example.com/)! And a reference-style link to [a panda][1].
References don't have to be [numbers][question].
[1]: http://notfound.stackexchange.com/
[question]: http://english.stackexchange.com/questions/11481

The format you've used is just "footnote" portion. In your text, you would place the link text within square brackets, and follow it directly with a reference to a "footnote" indicating what the actual URL is.

Note how the format you've used is tacked on at the bottom, and referenced from the actual text.

Additional info
If you add a link via either the button at the top of the editor or by using the Ctrl+L shortcut, the link will be added as a reference link, using a number as the reference. Each link you add this way will be numbered sequentially. However, the reference does not need to be a number. References can be changed, and multiple links can use the same reference.